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“The Times,” Monday, November 30, 1874 - John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, Vol. I (Cardinal Newman, Lady Blennerhassett, W.E. Gladstone) [1917]

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Selections from the Correspondence of the First Lord Acton, edited with and Introduction by John Neville Figgis and Renald Vere Laurence. Vol. I Correspondence with Cardinal Newman, Lady Blennerhassett, W.E. Gladstone and Others (London: Longmans, Gree and Co., 1917).

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“The Times,” Monday, November 30, 1874

To the Editor of “The Times.”

Sir,—

The Bishop of Nottingham thinks that I have misrepresented Pope Urban II and Suarez. I hope not. But if I have, I will endeavour promptly and fully to repair the wrong.

And, first of all, it is true that the words I transcribed from Suarez do not contain the definite and final statement of his opinion. I ought to have taken that from the paragraph of which the Bishop has quoted a part. Suarez states his own conclusion, a few lines lower than the point where the Bishop’s extract ends, in the following words: “Recte dixit Soto—licet Rex in solo regimine tyrannus non possit a quolibet interfici, Lata vero sententia quisque (inquit) potest institui executionis minister. Eodem moda si Papa Regem deponat, ab illis tantum poterit expelli, vel interfici quibus ipse id commiserit.”

It may be thought that there is little practical difference between the two propositions that a king deprived by the Pope may be murdered by anybody, and that he may be murdered only by persons commissioned by the Pope to do it; and for my purpose, which was to show that participation in Ridolfi’s conspiracy would be no bar to canonisation, they are of equal effect. But, for Suarez, there was probably this important distinction—that the former might have brought him under the decree of Constance against tyrannicide, a decree which the General of the Jesuits had pressed on the attention of the Society after the assassination of Henry IV. This difficulty might be avoided by making the lawfulness of the murder depend on the commission given by the Pope.

While I wish to make this correction in the most explicit way, I regret I cannot profit by the Bishop’s other criticism. Urban II says positively that he deems the killing of excommunicated persons no murder if done from religious zeal only. But he wishes a penance to be imposed, in case there may have been any intrusion of an inferior motive. It would hardly be possible to say more definitely that though there may be murder in one case there is no murder in the other.

It may be worth while to mention that the page I referred to in Droysen is 47, not 42; and that in citing Bianchi I have not given the page but the chapter, as the argument in question runs through several pages.—I remain, sir, your obedient servant,

Acton.

Athenæum,Nov. 29.

To the Editor of “The Times.”

December 12, 1874.

Sir,—

One whose distinguished position and character give him the strongest claim to be heard has expressed to me his belief that, “the charge of equivocation brought by” me, “against Fénelon, cannot be sustained.” In support of my contention that the agreement in thought and deed attainable among Catholics is not of a kind which justifies the apprehension of danger to the State, I described Fénelon as earning credit by his humility under censure while he retained his former views. I said: He “publicly accepted the judgment as the voice of God. He declared that he adhered to the decree absolutely, and without a shadow of reserve, and there were no bounds to his submission. In private he wrote that his opinions were perfectly orthodox and remained unchanged, that his opponents were in the wrong, and that Rome was getting religion into peril.” The doubt entertained by my correspondent may apply either to my account of the Archbishop’s public acts or of his private thoughts; I will therefore give the authority for both.

Fénelon explained his personal sentiments in a letter of the 9th October 1699: “J’ai toujours soutenu que je n’avois jamais cru aucune des erreurs en question. Le Pape n’a condamné aucun des points de ma vraie doctrine, amplement éclaircie dans mes défenses. Il a seulement condamné les expressions de mon livre avec le sens qu’elles présentent naturellement, et que je n’ai jamais eu en vue. Dire que je me suis retracté, ce seroit faire entendre que j’ai avoué avoir eu des erreurs, et ce seroit me faire une injustice.”

On the 3rd of April in the same year he wrote: “Je n’ai jamais pensé les erreurs qu’ils m’imputent. Je puis bien, par docilité pour le Pape, condamner mon livre comme exprimant ce que je n’avois pas cru exprimer, mais je ne puis trahir ma conscience, pour me noircir lâchement moi-même sur des erreurs que je ne pensai jamais.”

On the 17th he describes himself as “un archevêque innocent, soumis, qui a défendu l’ancienne doctrine sur la charité contre une nouveauté dangereuse.” He says on the 3rd of May: “Ne voit-on pas que je ne puis en conscience confesser des erreurs que je n’ai jamais pensées?” And on the 24th of April, speaking of his opponents, he says: “Ils n’ont rien de décidé sur le fond de la doctrine.” He continued to think that they, not he, were theologically in the wrong, and that Rome encouraged them. He wrote, on the 17th of April, that it was felt that all honest men thought him right and Bossuet wrong: “que tous les honnêtes gens me plaignent, et trouvent que j’avois raison, et M. de Meaux tort dans notre controverse.” On the 3rd of April he wrote: “Si Rome ne veut point rendre témoignage à la pureté de la doctrine que j’ai soutenue, et qui est tout ce que j’ai eu dans l’esprit, ils font encore plus de tort à cette doctrine qu’á moi.” On the 24th of April: “Le parti est d’une telle hauteur qu’ils entrainent tout. Rome a donné des armes à des esprits bien violens.” He writes on the 1st of May to his agent at Rome: “Il faut tâcher d’éviter les surprises dans une cour où tout est si incertain, et où la cabale ennemie est si puissante.” And again, on the 15th: “Vous connoissez l’esprit de mes partis, et vous ne savez que trop par l’expérience combien ils sont accrédités dans la cour où vous etes.”

That is Fénelon’s avowal of his opinions. I proceed to the account he gives of his submission.

On the 28th of April he wrote: “Ma soumission sera, moyennant la grâce de Dieu, aussi constante qu’elle est absolue, et accompagnée de la plus sincère docilité pour le Saint-Siège.” On the 8th of May: “On peut juger par là combien mon mandement est d’un exemple décisif pour la pleine soumission à l’Eglise Romaine.” In his letter to Innocent XII, of the 4th of April, he says: “Libellum cum XXIII propositionibus excerptis, simpliciter, absolute, et absque ulla nel restrictionis umbra condemnabo—Nulla erit distinctionis umbra levissima, qua Decretum eludi possit, aut tantula excusatio unquam adhibeatur.” It was, he declared, the most perfect submission a Bishop could make (April 3).

I know nothing in my remarks on Fénelon which these extracts, added to those which I have already given, leave unproved. In matters of history it is well to abstain from hazarding unnecessary judgments. I have not expended an adjective on Suarez, and have imputed nothing worse than subtleties to Fénelon. The reproach of equivocation, which I have not adopted, was made by his adversaries: “Ils disent que ma soumission si fastueuse est courte, seche, contrainte, superbe, purement extérieure et apparente; mais que j’aurois dû reconnoitre mes erreurs évidentes dans tout mon livre” (May 15).

The agents of his accusers have recorded their impression as follows: “On croyait qu’il ne songeroit plus qu’a réparer le scandale qu’il avoit causé à l’Eglise par une rétractation publique de ses erreurs, mais on n’y trouva rien d’approchant, tout y paroissait sec et plein de paroles vagues, qui pouvoient n’exprimer qu’une soumission extérieure et forcée” (Relation du Quiétisme, ii. 278). “Au lieu d’en être édifié, j’en fus scandalisé au dernier point. Il ne me fut pas difficile d’en découvrir tout l’orgueil et tout le venin. On voit bien par là ce qu’on doit penser de la soumission, qu’il n’est plus permis de croire sincère, et qui ne peut être que forcée” (Abbé Bossuet to his uncle, May 5).

Bossuet, though he expressed himself with greater dignity, thought the pastoral evasive: “M. de Cambray ne se plaint que de la correction, en évitant d’avouer sa faute. On est encore plus étonné que, très-sensible à son humiliation, il ne le paroisse en aucune sorte à son erreur, ni au malheur qu’il a eu de la vouloir répandre. Il dira, quand il lui plaira, qu’il n’a point avoué d’erreur. Encore qu’il ne puisse pas se servir du prétexte de l’ignorance, il n’en manquera jamais” (May 25, April 19).

Of Fénelon’s explanations, he said (May 25): “Si elles sont justes, si elles conviennent au livre, le Saint Père a mal condamné le livre in sensu obvio, ex connexione sententiarum, etc. Il ne faut que brûler le bref, si ces explications sont reçues. Si sa doctrine est innocente, que devient le bref? C’est le Saint Siège et son decret qu’on attaque, et non pas nous.”

This was the general impression. Fénelon himself gave no public intimation that, as has been said, it was his grammar and not his theology that he condemned. Neither the decree nor the pastoral distinguished the doctrine of the author from the text of his book, and the people who read the condemnation, qualified by no saving clause, could hardly fail to suppose that Fénelon had been in error.

“Ce qui est certain c’est que les uns n’osent plus parler d’amour de pure bienveillance, et que les autres supposent tout ouvertement qu’il est condamné dans mon livre. Aussi disent-ils qu’il ne s’agit pas de mes expressions, mais de ma doctrine, qui est, disent-ils, condamnée, en sorte que je dois l’abjurer” (April 24).

Although Fénelon knew that this belief prevailed he let it pass; and the motives of the reserve which brought him exaggerated credit for humility under censure continue to be variously interpreted.

But in dealing with his own suffragans and with the Court of Rome he took care to explain that he deemed his orthodoxy unimpeached, and he even endeavoured to have it formally acknowledged. It would go against his conscience, he declared, to renounce his real opinions: “Tout le repos de ma vie roule sur l’acceptation de cette soumission, faute de quoi nous tomberions dans une persécution sur un formulaire captieux, qui nous mèneroit à d’affreuses extrémités.”

He speaks with alarm of “le danger d’un formulaire qui allât à me faire souscrire, contre ma conscience, la condemnation de sensus ab auctore intentus” (April 4, 17).

Fénelon’s position was understood at Rome. His friends wished to have his real sentiments expressly excluded from the condemnation of his book, and his opponents wished that he should be required to retract them. But neither party prevailed. The Pope appears to have hoped that he would recognise his errors, but admitted afterwards that he was not convinced of having erred. He said to the Abbé Bossuet, “qu’il falloit espérer que l’Archevêque de Cambrai reconnoitroit ses erreurs et s’humilieroit.” Three weeks later, when he had received Fénelon’s answer to the Decree, he said, “qu’il voyoit très bien qu’il n’étoit pas persuadé d’avoir erré” (April 14, May 5). Bossuet himself was of opinion that although the submission was illusory it ought to be accepted.

It is open to men to decline his harsh interpretation, and to prefer the milder judgment shown in the tolerant acquiescence of Rome. If I adopted the worst view of Fénelon’s conduct I should detract materially from the effect with which his example shows the difficulty of forcing upon men an iron rule of uniformity. To imagine that British institutions are secure because ecclesiastical authority may be evaded by those who choose to equivocate, or that conscience can be sheltered by duplicity, would be the part of an idiot. But it is a valid and relevant illustration of my argument to note that a famous controversy which raged for years between the ablest prelates in the Church, setting in motion all the influence of France and all the resources of Rome, and occupying for many months the anxious thought of the Pope and his Cardinals, a controversy which was decided by the unqualified triumph of one party and the defeat of the other, ended by leaving the feud unquenched, and each side persistent in maintaining the orthodoxy of its own exclusive opinion.—I remain, sir, your obedient servant,

Acton.

Aldenham,Dec. 9.

Hawarden Castle,Chester,
Dec. 3, ’74.

My dear Lord Acton,—

1. You will have seen the disparaging terms in which Bp. Ullathorne has spoken of Dr. Döllinger’s Theology. I want to be in a condition to say a word on this subject, if I write again, which Manning’s announced reply may perhaps force me to do. Can you tell me in what year he became Professor of Theology? I have read what is in Friedrich’s Documenta, 1, vi., about Card. Schwarzenberg’s1 testimony. Is there any other which I ought to quote?

2. You made no observation on my Prop. No. 14, from the Syllabus about Matrimony: I do not know whether you observed it. Coleridge the Jesuit2 has assailed me on it: MacColl propounded another interpretation. I am not satisfied with either of theirs, nor, I frankly admit, altogether with my own. Coleridge says the Syllabus No. 73, latter number, condemns a “bilateral proposition.” This proposition is:

“Aut contractus matrimonii inter christianos semper est sacramentum, aut nullus est contractus, si sacramentum excludatur.”

I have asked Coleridge: Who ever propounded this? What does it mean?

To me, I own, it appears nonsense: and the two things not disjunctive, but conjunctive. Should we not say: If the contract (among Christians) is always a sacrament (which I understand to be the Roman doctrine) then of course no sacrament, no contract.

I have puzzled over this a good while; but Coleridge writes to me contemptuously, and seems to feel himself quite infallible.

Do not trouble yourself with this unless so inclined: my No. 1, for Döllinger’s sake, I am sure you will not grudge.

3. About the Sendschreiben1 ?

And now lastly a few words without a query.

This business is very serious. It certainly will please me, and I suppose it might not displease you, if others will take up the question of Ultramontanism theologically. But this is no business of mine, in the present conflict. It is my duty, on the ground of incompetence, and on other grounds, to keep out of it. I have another duty more difficult and delicate which I must not neglect. I see already, and feel, efforts to draw me (from the Protestant side) through interpretations put on this pamphlet, into the general anti-Roman controversy. All such I meet by saying that I shall abide by and prosecute if needful the argument to the best of my power within the limits which I have already marked out for myself.

I have been busy in many ways with the fruits of the pamphlet. Among other matters, I am reading the curious volumes of Discorsi di Pio IX,2 published at Rome. I may find it my duty to write, collaterally, upon them. I daresay you know the book.—Believe me, sincerely yours,

W. E. Gladstone.

Hawarden Castle,Chester,
Dec. 18, ’74.

My dear Lord Acton,—

1. When you were putting in caveats and warnings, you did not say to me “Now, mind, this affair will absorb some, perhaps many, months of your life.” It has been so up to the present moment—and it evidently will be so for some time.

2. But for me it is nothing compared with what it is for you. And I assure you, I have asked myself much and many times what was my duty to you, and others like you. And my answer to myself has been this:

(a) To move others, if I could, to take up their position abreast of you. For, in such a position, Defendit numerus. I have laboured at it, but as yet without effect.

(b) By carefully watching my own language, and making no attack on the R.C. religion such as an R.C. was required to hold it before July 1870. To this I have endeavoured rigidly to conform. A furious and inveterate Protestant foe of mine, Dr. Porter, or Potter, of Sheffield, has pointed this out in print. I might deviate by accident. If I do, pray pull me up. Of course I do not, and cannot hold myself tightly bound as to reserves of language in speaking of the Roman authorities who have done all this portentous mischief. You perhaps saw a letter of mine in the papers to some Nonconforming ministers. It was intended to mark out my province. Unfortunately they had misread “clearly” and printed it “thereby.”

(c) By curbing myself from all endeavours to turn to account this crisis in the interest of proselytism.

3. A thousand thanks for the admirable passage about Dr. Döllinger. I enclose my projected rendering of it. I would also print the original.

4. His words to me in English on the point you mention were to the effect that he despaired of any satisfactory change under the ordinary working of the Roman Curia, though it might, however, come by crisis or revolution. But you doubtless have heard from him in German, which in these nice matters is better.

5. I agreed with every word of R. S.1 till I came to “G. should own himself mistaken here like a man.” But it seems to me that I am exactly right. I put No. 13 to illustrate No. 14. I complain of No. 14. And simply because it condemns civil marriage as, per se, null and void, or, as the Pope calls it in his marvellous speeches, un concubinato. I manifestly cannot confess an error which I do not see.

6. On the Syllabus generally I have understated the case. It seems to be clearly a condemnation ex cathedra, which I did not venture to assume.

7. Pray do not think any more now about the Sendschreiben.

8. There is a notion that Manning’s rashness has been disapproved at Rome. I have a letter from Nardi this morning, but nothing to confirm this.

9. I keep R. S. until desired by you to return him. No, I return him—as you may want it should you read the Coleridge letters.—Always sincerely yours,

W. E. Gladstone.

Aldenham Park,Bridgenorth,
December 19-20.

My dear Mr. Gladstone,—

I do not know whether I ought to wish others to commit themselves in my behalf. Very few look on these questions exactly as I do, and the direct attack on the Council, when not absolutely inevitable, as it was made to the German divines, can hardly lead to any palpable results. The actual retractation of the Decrees is hopeless. What is not hopeless is to make the evils of Ultramontanism so manifest that men will shrink from them, and so explain away or stultify the Vatican Council as to make it innocuous.

I have brought my bishop to admit that I am quite in order as far as the Vatican Council goes, that I am not breaking the obligations of the Apostolic Constitution, or incurring any anathema; and I have tried to explain to him that my attack is directed elsewhere, and would, in fact, lose its real effect if I were to contradict the Vatican Decrees. I am not likely to succeed so well with Manning, who will probably think that the Council cannot practically be sustained if my course is allowed to be regular and will require something more than a merely negative conformity.

What I want people to understand is that I am not really dealing with the Council, but with the deeper seat of the evil, and am keeping bounds with which any sincere and intelligent bishop of the minority must sympathise. If I am excommunicated—I should rather say when I am—I shall not only be still more isolated, but all I say and do, by being in appearance at least, hostile, will lose all power of influencing the convictions of common Catholics.

I put the question on this ground only—Can a Catholic speak the truth or not?

The Italian translation is a good opening, and it would be interesting to take advantage of it. But I am compelled to give all my time to my own work, either for the purpose of meeting attacks, should any come which need attention, or, if my part of the controversy languishes, for the purpose of getting ready a revised and reinvigorated edition of my second letter, with a superabundance of proof. I have a vision of a tract containing in 100 pages the distilled essence of all my researches.

Although I cannot do what Bianchi wishes (and if I could, it would not be to throw you over except in the measure you knew at Hawarden), I should like to see it well done. The writer of the letter, which I return, is the author of some brilliant articles you must have read on D.’s Reform Bill in 1868, in the Chronicle. He is so able and so good a man that I should have liked him to see your correspondence with Coleridge. And he would be the most competent man I know to do what the Italians ask for.

Your translation is quite accurate. Werner’s importance must not be exaggerated. But he was the man chosen in all Germany to do for Catholic Theology what Dorner1 did for Protestant—that is, to be the rival of a writer of the first rank.

I think you are right (and I thought you were wrong) about the Syllabus. It is hard to prove that it is now an ex cathedra declaration. But it is impossible to disprove it, and it will be left in the twilight until wanted in the glare.

There are parts of your letter that call for a warmer acknowledgment than these few lines.—Yours most truly,

Acton.

Aldenham Park,Bridgenorth,
December 24th.

My dear Mr. Gladstone,—

I don’t see my way clearly about the Marriage question, and should be very glad if my friend, R. Simpson (of 4 Victoria Road, Clapham), succeeded in throwing light upon it.

I sounded him as to the Italian project, but I am afraid he does not bite. Newman is probably much attacked and worried in private by bishops and friends, and so feels compelled to speak. From his letters to me I gather that he will say that the Council has defined little or nothing in politics, that it does not sanction the Syllabus, that the more history speaks out the more it will be found that its facts are compatible with the Decrees, and that he accepts every word of them. I think I told you that he had at one time renounced the idea of writing.

With every good wish for this festive time.—I remain, yours very truly,

Acton.

Hawarden Castle,Chester,
Dec. 27th, ’74.

My dear Lord Acton,—

1. I am very sorry that Mr. Simpson is not available for Bianchi’s1 purpose. Can you suggest any other person? Do you know Rev. Mr. Case of Gloucester, and would he do? Capes or Suffield could write against one of the isms better than they could set up the other. Can I do anything except refer to Germany. And who is there that would do it so that it should be readable and effective? Dr. D. could not be expected to perform such a task.

2. Von Schulte2 on the Power of the Roman Popes is very difficult to read—in English: the German I have not seen. I believe he is very learned, and trustworthy as to facts and citations.

3. Can you tell me where I should find (in London, I suppose):

(a) The files of the Civilta Cattolica;

(b) Pius IX’s approval of it;

(c) The series of his Briefs and allocutions—or any book showing the cases in which he has condemned and annulled State laws and constitutions.

4. I fear I have conceded too much to the Papal party in three points:

(a) In not treating the Syllabus as ex cathedra.

(b) In allowing that the Popes have been apt to claim “dogmatic infallibility” for wellnigh a thousand years: p. 28.

(c) As to the Oecumenicity of the Vatican Council.

5. Manning hits out wildly like a drunken man. You see, however, he is obliged to pass by the letter in Macmillan. I am told it is confidently said in Rome that the Curia thinks he has been imprudent.—Yours sincerely,

W. E. Gladstone.

Aldenham Park,Bridgenorth,
Dec. 30, 1874.

My dear Mr. Gladstone,—

I send you what I have got in the way of papal utterances, with the Sendschreiben and the denunciation of the Austrian constitution. As to the points conceded to Rome:

I believe it is very hard to prove that the Decrees literally and certainly sanction the Syllabus. Gigli, then Magister Sacri Palatii, told me that he considered the Syllabus an informal document. This is inconsistent with the terms of the encyclical, but, if it was technically possible for so high a functionary to say that, there may still be some formal or technical flaw—such as the absence of sanctions or penalties—enabling men to maintain that it is an open question whether the Syllabus is positively authenticated by the Council; as long as men can honestly deny it, without a too glaring inconsistency, one must give them the benefit of the doubt. I remember, indeed, that I expressed these doubts to Döllinger, and he overruled them, but I cannot recall the chain of his reasoning against me.

The genesis of Infallibility is the most obscure of questions. As long as the Popes anathematised Honorius1 they, of course, testified against it; but at the same time traces of the claim are surely a thousand years old. I fancy you know Langen’s excellent book on the Tradition of the Church in this matter. But Langen avoids the real question, which is, the succession of forgeries by which the claim was sustained. This point is only slightly touched by Janus.

The question of oecumenicity is very large. It is only since the Reformation that the Roman divines have accepted all the later Councils—four, or eight, were all that were commonly accepted as oecumenical before. But you must attack Trent if you attack the Vatican Council, and that at once shifts the ground of your contention. Even now there is no authentic list of Councils that Rome holds to be oecumenical; and I remember that Dupanloup left out Constance from his list.

The powerful writer in Macmillan might do for Bianchi, but there are very good reasons why we should not propose it to him.

Schulte is learned and trustworthy, but a very clumsy writer. Do you know Frommann,2Geschichte und Kritik der V.C.?

I wish you a very happy and very peaceful New Year, and remain, yours sincerely,

Acton.

Archbishop’s House,Westminster, S.W.,
Nov. 16, 1874.3

My dear Lord Acton,—

I have to thank you for your letter dated yesterday: from which I gather, with much satisfaction, that your answer to my first question, whether in your letter to the Times you intended to repudiate the Vatican Decrees, is in the negative.

I am not; however, able to gather what answer you desire to give to the second question, namely, whether you adhere to the doctrines defined in the Vatican Council: unless you intend to describe yourself as one of “Those who adopt a less severe and more conciliatory construction” of those decrees.

If I am right in this inference, I would still ask you to enable me to understand what that construction is.

I see with great pleasure in your note that you had written an emphatic repudiation of the statements of the Times: and I regret much that any advice should have defeated your judgment of what is at this moment urgently needed for your own sake. Let me therefore ask you to enable me to reassure the minds of a multitude of those who at this time believe of you what the Times has sent all over the world.1 —Believe me, my dear Lord, yours faithfully,

✠ Henry E., Archbishop of Westminster.

The Lord Acton.

P.S.—I must ask you to forgive the omission of date in my last letter.

It was written on Thursday 12.

✠ H. E., Abp.

[1 ]Schwarzenberg, Friedrich (1809-85), Cardinal Archbishop of Prague.

[2 ]Coleridge, Henry James (1822-93), was the author of many works. He was brother of the Lord Chief-Justice and First Baron Coleridge.

[1 ]Sendschreiben an einen Deutschen Bischof des Vaticanischen Concils, September 1870.

[2 ]Discorsi del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX pronunziati in Vaticano . . . dal principio della sua prigiona fino al presente per la prima volta raccolti e pubblicati dal P. Don de Franciscis, Roma, 1872-78, 4 vols.

[1 ] R. S., i.e. Richard Simpson. Acton had seen little of him for some years, but they came together again over this controversy. He died in 1876.

[1 ]Dorner, Isaac Auguste (1809-84). From 1862 onwards he was professor at Berlin. His most important book is his Entwickelungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi.

[1 ]Bianchi, Nicomède (1818-86), a Piedmontese patriot and historian. He published various works on diplomatic history, e.g. La politique du Comte Camille de Cavour, and Storia documentata di diplomazia in Italia, 1814-61. The purpose was a translation of Mr. Gladstone’s appeal, Gasquet, 364.

[2 ]Von Schulte, Johann Friedrich (born 1827), one of the leaders of the Old Catholic Party, and author of many works on the Canon Law. The book in question is Die Macht der römischen Pāpste über Fürsten . . . nach ihren Lehren und Handlungen zur Würdigung ihrer Unfehlbarkeit belcuchtet, Prague, 1871.

[1 ] The case of Honorius I is important on the topic of Infallibility. Honorius was Pope from 625-638. He is supposed to have supported the monothelite heresy. What was more important, he was condemned at the Council of Constantinople in 680. In the oath taken by every new Pope from the eighth to the eleventh century he was anathematised.

[2 ]Frommann, Theodor. Geschichte und Kritik des Vaticanischen Concils von 1869-70.

[3 ] This and the following letters refer to Acton’s letters to the Times in regard to Mr. Gladstone’s pamphlet on the Vatican Decrees. In consequence of these letters Cardinal Manning wrote three times to Acton demanding explanations. One of these is printed. The letters and discussion with Simpson printed in Gasquet 359-70 should be compared with these.

[1 ]Cf. Gasquet.